Steganography

This is a web version of my PowerPoint presentation on Cryptography and Steganography. It's a ~70-slide discussion of what steganography is, how it's used, and whether or not Al Qaeda might or might not have been using steganography to send hidden messages.

In a nutshell: Despite many rumors speculating that they were, I don't think they did, and I go into the detailed reasons why, in my presentation. Anyone who has hard data proving otherwise, please write to me, and I'll update my talk accordingly.

This talk was written to be understandable by anyone, and is not focused towards the high level mathematical cryptologists. My own current job is as a game designer and manager of online communities. One of my (many) hobbies is cryptography, which I have won an award or two for, such as when I cracked the PhreakNIC v3.0 Code. After September 11th, I contacted my local FBI office to ask if I could use any of my crypto "skillz" to help with the war on terrorism. After some repeated pestering, and then some brainstorming about how I could best help, it was requested that I put together a talk on steganography, which could be used to educate various field agents about what steganography is, and how it might be used. My first talk therefore was given to agents from the FBI, Customs Service, Assistant U.S. Attorney's office, Postal Inspectors, and Secret Service. And then things just grew from there.

Note:
The PowerPoint slides on this site are current as of this point (PhreakNIC 2002). Later versions of the talk (at the locations below) have updated slides, but I haven't updated the website to reflect the changes yet. Most of the changes relate to Al Qaeda codes which are known (none of them used digital steganography though), and some additional info about the Kryptos sculpture.

This talk has also been given to various other small groups here and there. If you see me passing by with laptop in hand, just ask, and I'll give the talk, no charge. ;)

To see the web version of the PowerPoint slides, please choose the version that's most compatible with your browser type:

Hi-Res Version - The full "bells and whistles" version that requires IE4+. This one will make full use of IE capabilities, including having an option to go to "full-screen" display mode where you get most of the animation effects. It does require high end browsers though, and it does use ActiveX

Low-Res Version - A lower-res version that is compatible with IE and Netscape 3+. No ActiveX, but it does require Javascript